“The Fellow who Married the Maxill Girl” by Ward Moor

First appeared in F&SF and was reprinted by Judith Merril, Robert P. Mills, Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg,  and Ellen Datlow. Read online here.

Summary:

 “The Fellow who Married the Maxill Girl” is a great folksy title summarizing how Nan’s town, Henryton, might have summarized it: Some unknown chap marries into THE Maxill clan. Nan is considered wild (caught necking in two different cars with two different boys though she hadn’t been caught with the others) and she later considers her young self to have been something similar. Maxill name carried some notoriety since the father, Malcolm Maxill, bought a lousy farm to be a bootlegger. None respect him or his farm.

One day a man with eight fingers, Ash, visits and can only hum—his only means of communication. The girls want to keep. He doesn’t eat much although he seems incapable of doing chores. What he can do is heal birthmarks, orchard trees, and crops so that suddenly people start paying attention to Malcolm.

Commentary with Spoilers:

Nan and Ash learn each other’s language and marry and even have a child although she want more. Malcolm schemes for greater things but dies in a freeway accident. They decide to let Ash and Nan continue to run the farm and raise the rest of the girls and their own son. The farm continues to prosper. As Nan ages she notices Ash does not, and she worries. When his people call him back as he is needed, he goes although a word from her would have stopped him. She is sure that the farm will collapse but she suddenly seems to have acquired Ash’s skill.

A disappointing ending since it wasn’t prepared for, but otherwise a strong piece. Moore can compress time admirably when it comes to events, but when he tries to relate many emotions or convey imaginings about what her society might do (which may be true but no evidence is provided), it falls flat. 

Worth reading, especially since it carries more voice than most of his stories usually give.

“It Becomes Necessary” or “The Cold Peace” by Ward Moore

First appeared in Gent and was reprinted by Judith Merril and Ellen Datlow.

            Summary

American Mrs. Fieldman has become a permanent ex-pat in France after her husband is murdered in her native country for his being a Jew. She is lured back to the U.S. with money, but she isn’t buying.

Recommend skipping this tale although it is short. You can find it stored here on Wayback.

            Commentary with Spoilers

However, when a Frenchman tries to burn an American flag, her patriotism reasserts itself and she tries to stop him, so the French beat her to death. Too pedantic and talky (it’s mostly a conversation), but a decent ending (decent aesthetically, not morally, of course--for those unfamiliar with the blog), which often seems to be Moore’s strength.

The original title, “Cold Peace,” makes multiple commentaries on the multiple societies involved. Perhaps Moore felt it necessary to comment on the ending through the title, which is what I presume the new title was intended to do.

Mislaid Poets: Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay seems to have been quite the liberated character--sassy with authority, loving whomever she chose, having an open marriage. There's also something tragic, her shying away from the public when she'd lost her looks. She died a year after losing her husband, falling down the stairs.

Her popularity has eroded somewhat. While her subject matter and gender are vogue, her method is not. But she still has much to offer.

Her "Fig" poems are kind of epigrammatic anti-proverbs, perhaps intended to be contrary wisdom, even a little sacreligious (figs possibly being the forbidden fruit that gained humanity knowledge between good and evil and the leaves the first couple used to hide behind). Supposedly the poems were an anthem for the Twenties, but also, in retrospect, speaks of her own life:

First Fig 

My candle burns at both ends;
  It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
  It gives a lovely light!

Second Fig 

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

Her sonnets, often about love like Shakespeare, have their enchantments and also like Shakespeare, the imagery is spare. The one that holds up after multiple readings and may be the best is "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed":

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there sits a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

This is beautiful verse (although for some it may a double melancholic ring with its frank sexuality) is both sweet and melancholy, remembering the passing of lovers and the passing of one's youth and perhaps beauty as well. She was only 31 at its publishing, which seems premature, but maybe she saw the wall's scrawl.

A popular but, in my ear, less resonant sonnet is "Love Is Not All" which has some great lines:

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink...
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath...
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone...
I might be driven to sell your love for peace...
It may well be. I do not think I would.

That last line, even with its uncertainty, doesn't change the poem's direction much. Would it be better to choose one or the other? Maybe. Especially if the persona would sell the love which is sort of interesting, but it still doesn't do the sonnet's job of changing lanes. Apparently it does for other readers.

Two short bird poems ("Wild Swans" and "Passer Moruus Est") moved me. The first seems to be a call to abandon normal life for one of wildness: "Houses without air! I leave you and lock your door! Wild swans, come over the town, come over / The town again, trailing your legs and crying!" The second uses the death of the sparrow as an occasion to remark, "Need we say it was not love, / Now that love has perished?"

Millay was well respected for the long poem. There was an outcry when she didn't win a contest for "Renascence" which propelled her into poetry's relative fame. She also won a Pulitzer for "Harpweaver" although Untermeyer thought it sentimental. "Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree" is interesting for the opening lines:

So she came back into his house again
And watched beside his bed until he died,
Loving him not at all.

Intriguing stuff. The persona goes about her business with some keen imagery, but again not much changing directions for a group of sonnets. One wonders with a number of these longer poems if they could have been stronger as shorter works.

Louis Untermeyer has the most complete assessment of her work, tackling each book, and some of the best selections. Millay as a reader has a curious voice--part British, part American, part...? She chants as Yeats and other poets insisted it should be done, yet with her background in theater, she also follows the emotion more than most poets of her time did.

The Jealous Kind by James Lee Burke,

I can't recall if I've read James Lee Burke before but perhaps not. His characters are razor-sharp in their realism, his plots gripping as slides the blade.

Where to start? He won Edgar Awards for Black Cherry Blues and Cimarron Rose while Amazon readers ranked Purple Cane Road as his best. He also has two collections of stories published in literary journals like Antioch, Chariton Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah, and so forth. So I think I'll try those out next.

Someone at The New York Times Book Review called The Jealous Kind's examination of the 1950's “nostalgia noir.” I didn't realize it was part of a series (the Holland Family), but I didn't feel left out.

Aaron Holland Broussard gets embroiled in a fight with a rich kid, Grady Harrelson, over his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend Valerie Epstein, which involves the delicious dialogue exchange:

“I thought maybe something was wrong and y’all needed help.” 

“Get lost, snarf.” 

“What’s a snarf?” 

“Are you deaf?” 

“I just want to know what a snarf is.” 

“A guy who gets off on sniffing girls’ bicycle seats. Now beat it.” 

The music speaker went silent. My ears were popping. I could see people’s lips moving in the other cars, but I couldn’t hear any sound. Then I said, “I don’t feel like it.” 

“I don’t think I heard you right.” 

“It’s a free country.” 

“Not for nosy frumps, it isn’t.” 

“Leave him alone, Grady,” Valerie said. 

“What’s a frump?” I said. 

“A guy who farts in the bathtub and bites the bubbles. Somebody put you up to this?” 

“I was going to the restroom.” 

“Then go.”

Grady's family is connected to high and low places, so this seemingly one-time bold perhaps foolish act carries long-term consequences that get worse and worse. Fortunately for him, he gets Valerie on his side (as his girl) and, less fortunately, Saber, his best buddy, who is the problematic kind of best buddy at best:

Saber was the only kid in school who how to stick porcupine quills in Krauser [the shop teacher who billed himself a WWII war hero but was a pain in the students' butts] and keep the wounds green on a daily basis. Krauser believed it was Saber who'd hung plunger through the hole in the ceiling, but he couldn't prove it and was always trying to find another reason to nail Saber to the wall. But Saber never misbehaved in metal shop, whereas other guys did and in serious fashion."

My main problem with the novel is the main character as an adult telling the tale. He seems to buy into his teenage reasoning, but the kid makes foolish choices which only makes things harder on himself. I didn't quite realize this until I was three-quarters through the book. His father had excellent advice of not even talking to these people, but Aaron does anyway. By luck, Aaron's mistakes are shown to be nothing and his enemies have done all the real damage. Writerly ingenuity would have been the better path, but the plot was rather convoluted, so maybe Burke needed to tame the multiplying threads.

It's a good enough novel, but probably not the place to begin.

Mislaid Poets: Vachal Lindsay

Back in the day, Dover did a bunch of thrift editions for a buck or two, which I bought to shore up my literary education. They often had little opening essays and a brief sampler of an author. I picked up a Lindsay collection this way but never got around to reading him since a professor said he was a terrible poet.

Some critics do hold that opinion and don't anthologize him (or at least offer very little of his work). Other critics admire his ability to write "songs"--accessible lyrics with repetitions and choruses, with an ear toward sound. Poems like "Congo" included stage directions for how to read it aloud.

He was a popular literary phenomenon from about World War I to the Great Depression. Under the continued pressure of critics and the never-ending lecture circuit when he collapsed, he finally killed himself. What accounted for his successes and demerits?

Lindsay celebrated America, from every politician to the different "races" that made up the nation. He sought to spread the gospel of poetry by making it popular, musical, incantatory. Louis Untermeyer, whom W.S. Merwin read for his early poetry education, called Lindsay "a combination missionary and minstrel." He also wrote that the poet "made America resemble... a County Fair--"

every soul resident
In the earth's one circus tent

So Lindsay was trying, perhaps in a Whitmanian idealistic fit, to join and celebrate difference. This he pulled off to mixed results.

I'm going to go backwards from an unimpressive poem to his famed poem to shape the poet's reading to its best effect. Let's tackle "The Mysterious Cat" which we are directed to read by "Caterwaul[ing] in the Cat Dialect".

The poem has some humor in much the same manner of today's internet memes where the cat "scorn[s] the slave that brought her cream." So the "owner" is the slave. But really this is about as complex as this poem gets:

But catnip she would eat and purr
But catnip she would eat and purr
And goldfish she did much prefer--
Mew, mew, mew.

The rhyme is clever in that recreates the purr sound (and suggests the cat's fur), but the repetition serves no grand purpose--here only as one might hear in a song: simple to keep a general audience entertained, especially those who own cats. This possibly mirrors the poet himself. Maybe this is meant as a child's poem, but it's included with the rest. Plus, even if this were a child's poem, he presents "The Mysterious Cat" without mystery (unless you count the owner/slave inversion, but I'm not sure it makes a  case for the cat being "Mysterious").

 The persona of "The Chinese Nightingale: A Song in Chinese Tapestries" [a poem Untermeyer praised for its "texture"] calls the Chinese-American laundry man, "Friend Chang," to show us that he has a good, positive relationship with this man and that we the readers or audience should share this view. Nothing tries to erode the Chinese culture, but rather celebrates it. However, all of the images are stock--jade, junks, dragons, green and red firecrackers--and nothing particularly personalizes Chang (or the persona, for that matter). This is not a story, but a song, but one gets the sense that, much as he means to celebrate their difference, he hasn't actually had conversations with these people to get a sense for how these people view themselves. In a contemporary sense, this is like people who write about certain political factions but refuse to talk to them. It makes no sense except to exude moral superiority. I suspect that Lindsay means to dodge that accusation, but it's not here yet.

In "General William Booth Enters into Heaven (to be sung to the tune of "The Blood of the Lamb")", we see Lindsay's (or is it Booth's or the culture's) evangelistic spirit, the desire to convert. Everyone tries to convert (John Lennon's "Imagine" which imagines world peace if everyone became atheist, which every religion might lay claim to the same). My point isn't to argue the merits of having any particular religion or not, but rather that evangelism is an impulse shared by many.

All of this leads to the most problematic yet possibly and paradoxically his best poem, which fronts a curious paradox of its own: "The Congo". It was anthologized by Langston Hughes but reviled in the African American magazine, Opportunity. Some anthologists run from it while others see it as part of the dialogue about race.

The first part of the subtitle is where the poem goes down hill: "A Study of the Negro Race". This suggests a scientific or at least objective look at its subject. But why would the Congo signify the whole Negro Race? Might not a better title have been "a musical study of common African motifs" or something? This has the issues that "The Chinese Nightingale" has: stock imagery and a lack of personalization. The images here, though, are sharper and more vivid than those in "The Chinese Nightingale".

Like "General William Booth Enters into Heaven", the poem has an evangelistic purpose seen in it. One can see this in its second part of the subtitle and in the poem's structure:
(Being a memorial to Ray Eldred, a Disciple Missionary of the Congo River.)
1. Their Basic Savagery
2. Their Irrepressible High Spirits
3. The Hope of their Religion

There seems to be a progression from "Savagery" (which I cannot put anything but a negative spin on unless context suggests otherwise) to religion. Curiously, before the preacher enters, they already have another trait (which I can't spin as anything except as a positive): "Irrepresible High Spirits." Note that this is a "study" of seeing the subject's behavior in its nature, not of changing its nature as one might do in an experiment. Moreover, the "their" possessives suggest they already have these three traits. These ideas inform my final comment on what "The Congo" is. It might be informative as well to learn who "Ray Eldred" was and how he was intended to shape the poem (or not).

When I read the first three words ("Fat black bucks") and the first subtitle, I thought this would certainly be racist, but when you get to the end of the poem, you find out the bad "witch-doctors" are "lean" (which conveniently rhymes with "clean"). Fat and black are assonance, so likely Lindsay's only consideration here is in sound. What about "bucks"? Yes, it could equating with animals, yet at the end it separates "men and beasts." Also a buck might also also show strength, vigor and virility. But again, I suspect it's the consonance that attracts Lindsay to his choices (see again the simple "The Mysterious Cat").

See also how the Apostles are wearing "coats of mail." Why would they wear coats of mail in the twentieth century (in their day, they wore robes)? Oh, right. "Mail" rhymes with "unveil." For that matter why are the twelve apostles even there? In the faith they represent how bumbling believers like ourselves can become great men of faith. Maybe that answers why they're there--just not the coats of mail. Why the anachronism, Lindsay? Maybe because they represent a system of knighthood? Maybe one day it'll click.

The truly fascinating--even paradoxical--aspect of this poem is "The Congo" which is a country as a people, which is a country a place, which is a river, which is the entire African diaspora (according to the subtitle--does that include all of the human race, then?). The metaphor grows rich, gathers nutrients from the banks, and winds with the chorus:

THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.

This starts ominous in the first section, becomes a thing of beauty in the second, and a transformative process by the third. Its appearance in the third ushers in all of the changes. So the thing that needs to be reformed--"The Congo"--becomes refined by the thing that needs to be reformed: The Congo. How is that? Iron sharpens iron? Presumably, the preacher and the river (baptism) did it, but it remains a paradox as Lindsay doesn't elucidate or delineate all of the different Congos. Anyway, fun to ponder.

A more definitive interpretation awaits--from one who knows better the general usage of the terms one hundred years ago, and one who can fill in the context of the writer's own life. Maybe I was too generous, or not generous enough.

It is sad that the man had spent his life trying to grow the audience for poetry, worked himself to exhaustion, felt appreciation for his life's work dwindle, and decided to end it. Maybe he'd worked himself into a corner and had no other means to escape.

It's hard to say which poets impact which, but one can imagine that Lindsay may have had some influence on the Beats and Spoken Word poetry--not to mention bringing poetry to a wider audience. That's quite the dramatic pose in the above picture, and from the detailed description of how his poem was to be performed, that might have been a pose for reciting poetry.

I do think "The Congo" is worth studying although I can understand those who balk, especially without context (every time I enter the poem, I bristle a little until I read on). Untermeyer and other anthologists thought other poems worthy of study as well. Untermeyer dedicated twenty-one pages to the poet, which in his WWII text is equivalent to Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams combined. This may be because he'd lived through the era when Lindsay had his most impact on the culture.

This Blog, Award nomination, Beowulf, and a Timely Article

Life changes, so must the blog. But I've always wanted the blog to be about deep-current human issues rather than the surface stirrings of gossip and wonders of the moment. I wanted discuss, not exhaust, topics.

I should be more consistent with a post on Friday (poetry) and one on Monday (fiction). If I have something small or extra, I'll slip it between on Wednesday. This seems a manageable schedule.

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In 2019, I had few publications, but this brief one at quatrain fish was recommended for a Pushcart prize. If you page down, there should be another brief poem. They came from my long days and nights of driving around the countryside.

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A professor opines that Beowulf may not have English origins.

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George Packer at The Atlantic Monthly penned this glorious article about the downward trend of American Letters and points at what he sees as the culprit.

"Lot" and "Lot’s Daughter" by Ward Moore

Both "Lot" and "Lot’s Daughter" first appeared F&SF.  The first was filmed as Panic in Year Zero and was reprinted by Everett F. Bleiler, T. E. Dikty, Anthony Boucher, J. Francis McComas, Brian W. Aldiss, Sheila Schwartz, H. Bruce Franklin, Walter M. Miller Jr., Martin H. Greenberg, Isaac Asimov and Peter Haining. The sequel story, "Lot’s Daughter", was reprinted by Robert P. Mills. They were published together in a slender volume by Tachyon Publications.

            Summary

Mr. David Jimmon and family are packed and hurrying out the door to escape the effects of a nuclear blast. A neighbor, Warbinn, tries to intercept them before they leave, but Mr. Jimmon is in hurry. They meet briefly on the highway for Warbinn to say that he had Jimmon's tire jack back at the house. Mr. Jimmon is angry but brushes it off thinking he had one in this particular car. Meanwhile, Mrs. Molly Jimmon talks about going back to L.A. in a few days and wants to check to see if the lines to L.A. are working.

            Commentary with Spoilers

Of all his kids, only Erika seems to be most like him, seems to realize the magnitude of what is occurring although there are hints that maybe Jimmon doesn’t really know the magnitude of what is happening. Are there as many nuclear blasts as he assumes there will be? Will civilization be wipe out?

Mr. Jimmon is clever enough to drive in the inbound lanes, which were empty except for a bunch of military, fire, and police department vehicles. Jimmon is written a citation and told to turn around. But he doesn't.

This section provides a clever solution and complication. However, it seems dubious, even pointless, that anyone would remain with the fallout radius. Staying behind sounds noble but also foolish and deadly. Surely, no one would have these groups drive into a dangerzone. Why? To save victims, they'd become victims. Maybe something else is going on.

Besides, once Jimmon leads the way, at least a third of the traffic would follow suit, speeding up both sides of traffic. 

This was a major story that writers continued to talk about into the nineties, demonstrated by Tachyon republishing the two stories as short novel/chapbook collection. Michael Swanwick in his introduction, puts the story into historical context, pointing out the era’s concern for school children surviving an atomic bomb by hiding under a desk, which may have done little to protect the kids. Children today still drill for potential shooters and tornados although the scale of an atomic bomb (and survival) would have been a far greater destructive and long-lasting effects. Those who drilled for an attack were probably the most moved by nuclear holocaust narratives so prevalent between the fifties and the eighties, which has dropped off even though nuclear explosion is still a possibility today.

The story’s details and dialog are mundane, focusing on the thoughts of a survivalist who has thought hard about this possibility. The family dwell on minor issues in the face of a graver danger—the father seeming to be the only one aware of the true danger of a nuclear bomb although presumably the kids were educated in the classroom, to some extent.

It has few speculative eyekicks, but its strength lies in a clever take on the Biblical tale of Lot, which immediately comes to mind today since the story is often paired with its sequel, "Lot’s Daughter."

One must take this in mind when interpreting the ending where he abandons his sons and wife—too concerned about the trappings of the past and civilization. In the Bible, Lot was told to leave Sodom and not to look back. In the story, none of his family wanted to leave, despite how abominably they treated his guests (and Lot promised them his daughters). Here though, we may only be expected to remember that they were told not to look back, but Lot’s wife did and she was turned to a pillar of salt. Here Jimmon takes the more active role of God and abandons her and their sons. Maybe they would be in the way in this new way of life that Lot expects. His wife does seem critical of a pudgy, aging David Jimmon surviving in a new world.

That Lot takes off with just his daughter suspends a second, suggestive meaning in their escape and abandoning the rest of the family. In the Bible, Lot’s daughters get him drunk and sleep with him to carry on the family seed.

But one should not forget the other possible meaning of “Lot” as in “much” and “portion” and “destiny.” Is Lot too much? What is Lot’s lot? Is it too much? Does he deserve it? Do his wife and children?

 “Lot’s Daughter”

If you’ve read “Lot,” you don’t need “Lot’s Daughter” (published about a year and a half later, so it’s difficult to tell if the story was written to answer questions that readers had) as the same theme carries on although it does answer some plot questions while leaving some of the same ones open.

The daughter becomes his wife, both physically and mentally (the incest stays mostly in the background). She has him explain why he left his family. He explains he left her $20,000, which would be a tidy sum, but she points out that that money would be useless to her if the economy collapses. After spotting jeep tracks and being dissatisfied with their present life, she sets out for what she hopes will be civilization. He, meanwhile, surmises what she did, sees the missing gun and carries on with their son despite the pain of molar that could be aided by civilization.

The story does answer that civilization was more devastated than his previous knowledge suggests as they have been using the car’s radio. Unfortunately, radio would have not have worked since the car battery, tires, gasoline, and even the engine itself might have all been dead after six or seven years. When Dad fell ill, we let Dad’s truck sit for two years without using it, and it had seized up. Gas goes bad over winter so they usually add additives to protect it, regular use of the battery would use up its energy unless they recharged it by driving it and he didn’t want to draw attention themselves by driving it.

The original editors, Boucher and McComas, insinuate that they saw David Jimmon as careful yet selfish. (They seem to be the ones who urged the sequel, according to their introductory material).

Editor Robert Mills, like Swanwick, calls the second story (and presumably the first) “a real treatment” of the nuclear scenario. The incest, despite being carefully worded and never displayed, apparently did not go without controversy, according to the back matter in the chapbook. Little wonder it got so few comparative reprintings, apart from the problem of being a sequel, much as it tried to stand alone.

It’s a good story although it depends heavily on the first, or it wouldn’t have lacked the proper impact. It is best read as a pair although the first story could stand alone. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect is how Erika both is and is not his daughter through this one act. These narratives are probably a critical piece of the genre in terms of discussing nuclear holocaust.

The Author

Ward Moore won no awards or nominations yet was respected by writers. Despite the appearance in several best-of anthologies, he seems to have never had a collection. Apparently, he appears as a character in books by Kenneth Rexroth, himself, and Jean Ariss. He is also well known as the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Bring the Jubilee, which I [will] discuss here.